Inseparable Couple Who Held Hands Every Day for 70 Years Dies Hours Apart

An elderly Ohio couple who had been married for over 70 years died last week, mere hours apart. Helen, who was 92, passed on April 12, and her 91-year-old husband Kenneth died the next morning after realizing she had gone.

The couple's eight children tell a tale of their amazing love story, and how the two have been inseparable since they met as teenagers -- even holding hands every morning during breakfast. Daughter Linda Cody said, "We knew when one went, the other was going to go."

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About 12 hours after Helen died, Kenneth looked to his kids and said, "Mom's dead." He joined her in the afterlife the next morning, surrounded by 24 of his closest family members.

"He was ready," Cody said. "He just didn't want to leave her here by herself."

They eloped across state lines in 1944, because Kenneth was still two days shy of his 21st birthday and therefore too young to marry in Ohio at the time. They hopped over to Kentucky to make it official, because as son Jim Felumlee said, "He couldn't wait."

The couple, who were both Sunday school teachers, once chose to spend the night together on the bottom bunk on a ferry rather than be apart for even one night.

They visited almost all 50 states by bus since retiring in 1983, because Kenneth didn't care to fly because "you couldn't see anything as you were going."

Maybe that's the trick to staying in love for such a long time -- enjoy the journey as much as the destination.

Cody said that through recent years of declining health, they each stayed strong for the other. She said, "That's what kept them going."

Do you think there's any particular trick for staying happily married until death?